It was Boris Johnson’s birthday yesterday. The new mayor was 44 and he began his big day by appearing on the Today programme in the 8.10am slot. The topic was the Olympic budget and the idea was to talk up the Olympics Games while laying down the law about cost overruns. The goal was to sound authoritative. This was to be a happy day as well as a happy birthday.

Instead, it was a car crash, and not just a little fender bender either. Boris doesn’t do little fender benders. He does big bizarre multiple vehicle pile-ups in which motorways have to be shut because a lorry of goats was involved and horned animals are roaming the outside lane. Yes, that bizarre. Actually it was even stranger. This time there were no goats involved, just one very large newt named Ken who couldn’t stop himself from calling up Radio 4 to crow on air. Can newts crow? They can now.

So when did things go wrong? I have timed it because, as this was about the Olympics, I like to have a stopwatch to hand. That is why I can report what may be a record. Boris burbled “Good morning!” to Sarah Montague. That took one second. That was the high point.

Her first question was about something called the memorandum of understanding. This document, signed by the former mayor and the former Chancellor, is about who pays if the Olympics overrun. (I love that “if”. Already, I felt like shouting at the radio.)

Sarah: “Can you clear that up by saying you will publish the memorandum?”

Boris: “Actually I haven’t seen the memorandum.” Crash, bang, wallop. Boris began to waffle about how there couldn’t be cost overruns and how transparent he was being. But at this point the only thing he was being, transparently, was a fool. No decent interviewer could hear that the mayor had not seen this memo and not come back to it.

Sarah: “Are you going to try and see this memo?”

Boris: “I rather doubt that it exists.” I could hear tyres screeching. CRASH, BANG, WALLOP. The capital letters are necessary. This was no longer a lower-case situation.

So would he publish? Boris kept evading the question (as you do when you are being transparent) and announced that the details of the agreement that did not exist were in doubt.

Sarah: “So the deal does not apply?”

Boris: “The details of this deal are far from clear.”

For me and all other listeners the memo of understanding was now a memo of misunderstanding. I was completely befuddled. Boris kept spouting that there could be no cost overruns and that these would be the the best Olympics since they began in 753BC. (Even this was wrong, it was 776BC.) He ended by denouncing the idea that he could compete with David Cameron to be leader as a “load of twaddle”.

Finally, something I could understand and, as it turns out, that is exactly what it all was. For within seconds we discovered that the memo of misunderstanding not only existed but it was on a government website and within minutes the former mayor was on the radio too.

Ken found it bizarre that Boris had not bothered to find the memo before coming on the programme. “But then you have to be fair to the man,” chortled Ken. “He’s got to write his Daily Telegraph column and so he can’t be a full-time mayor.”

Ouch. Now that is the sound a newt crowing.